Massoud Khalili - Resistance Against Invasion

Resistance Against Invasion

Khalili was a friend and adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud, resistance commander known as the "Lion of Panjshir" against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989), defense minister of Afghanistan (1992–2001) and leader of the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban.

Khalili and Massoud met for the first time in October 1978 after the communist Saur Revolution had overthrown the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan. Khalili remembers:

"We talked about the past and the future. I was talking more, maybe because I was older, but I found out later that listening was his habit."

Both men quickly discovered their shared interest for poetry.

After the meeting Khalili went on to live in the United States for two years where his father, Ustad Khalilullah Khalili, was serving as the ambassador to the United States. In 1980 he went back to Afghanistan to join Ahmad Shah Massoud's resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989). Khalili remembers:

"I wrote in my diary that I found something in him very vivid, distinguished, and strong: the hope he has for the liberation of Afghanistan. I wrote, "He is on the move, and while he is watching the mighty power of the Russians and their arsenal, he is planning how to defeat it with commitment. we talked about how to reach the people of the world and convice them that the Afghan people would stand whether they helped or not. They would stand by their own will and would continue the fight to victory, whether others wanted it or not."

In the 1980s Masood Khalili became a spokesperson and interpreter for Ahmad Shah Massoud. He traveled Afghanistan, Pakistan and Europe as a diplomat for the resistance. Massoud went on to defeat nine major offensives by the Soviet Red Army. When the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal named him "the Afghan, who won the cold war".

Masood Khalili describes the period after the Soviet withdrawal with the following words:

"The communist retreat from Kabul marked the end of one war and the beginning of another. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was just beyond the capital, and that chapter would be very dark, bloody, and brutal. Those were the worst years for us, and I think certainly the worst for Commander Massoud. Whenever you go back to the years 1992 to 1996, you find this chapter of Afghanistan full of blood. But, why do people call it a "civil" war? Unfortunately, Iran was helping one group, Uzbekistan was helping another group, and Pakistan was helping another - Hekmatyar. They made up something like a council of solidarity The Commander was almost alone with his own forces. The various forces fighting the government were all supported by neighboring countries who had their own interests and wanted us to fight each other "

Masood Khalili again started to work around Massoud as an adviser, interpreter and envoy - "as a soldier without a gun" as he calls it himself. In 1995 Khalili served as the Islamic State of Afghanistan governments's envoy to Pakistan for President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Relations between the Islamic State of Afghanistan and Pakistan were tense because of the latter's support to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban. In late 1995 Pakistan's government expelled Khalili in what the Washington Post called "the latest sign of worsening relations between the two countries".

On September 27, 1996, the Taliban seized power in Kabul with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban Emirate received no diplomatic recognition from the international community (except from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates). The United Nations and the international community kept recognition with the Islamic State of Afghanistan government Masood Khalili was working for. The Taliban imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts forbidding women to work outside the home, attend school, or to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) analyze:

To PHR’s knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment.

Masood Khalili was not in Kabul during that time but he recalls a phone call he got from Massoud:

"He said: "Did you hear that we left Kabul?" "Yes. Are you okay? Are the others okay?" "Yes," and he added, "We'll go back." Then he asked: "Do you have something in mind to tell me?" I told him a verse of my father's that night:

Oh the cruel, the despot, the oppressor!

I will not indeed be giving that to the one who wants to destroy me.

You will see me in another battle, in another time,

Because God has given hope to my heart,

And this hope will bring me back to what I want to reach.

"That is what I wanted. Hope will take us back! It's good that you have told me this tonight. Thank you very much."

Defense minister Ahmad Shah Massoud created the United Front (Northern Alliance) in opposition to the Taliban regime. The resistance against the Taliban was joined by leaders of all Afghan ethnicities and backgrounds. The Taliban committed massacres killing thousands of civilians. As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud. National Geographic concluded in its documentary "Inside the Taliban":

"The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud."

Khalili remained an adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud. In 1996 he was appointed as ambassador of the United Front to India.